Spencer Family Update...its gonna be a long one!

Well, in true ME form, I've procrastinated updating my blog. So for all those fanatic blog stalkers out there(if anyone even follows mine, lol) I hope you'll accept my apology in the form of an extended update, pictures and all.

Let's start with Easter. This year's Easter was a first for the Spencer's because we had a 'kid' living with us that was excited for the holiday. Any by 'kid' I mean my sister, who's not a kid but still gets excited like one. So, Kirk and I decided it would be fun to give her a full easter egg hunt, basket and all! Kirk did a pretty good job hiding them and she eventually found them all. It was fun to watch, like watching a kid in a candy store!

Moving on...the triathalon. I know I said after the last one that I wouldn't do it again but...I lied. I guess I need the motivation. I did a couple things differently this time starting with my training schedule. I didn't train near as much as I did last time which I was a little nervous about. Also there were a couple of pre-race things I didn't do, which aren't really that important. Overall though, I think I did pretty darn good. I improved my time by 30 minutes and I ran the whole time! Here are some token pictures taken by my loving hubby and supportive sister!








Kirk's birthday was also in the mix of the events but I don't have any picture from the night out at Joe's or the party we had. Man, I'm a bad wife! Anyways, here's to you Kirkle...my 30 year old hubby!!! Happy birthday!!!

Next on the list is VEGAS!!! Yep, Vegas baby! Sometimes working at a salon really pays off...ok, working at a salon usually always pays off in some form or another! Five of us from the salon were able to attend the annual Las Vegas hair show. My friend Audrey and I drove while everyone else flew. We went last minute so driving was the cheaper solution. The drive was AWESOME!! Audrey and I laughed so hard we were crying! Best road trip ever!! Among the cool things to see at the show, the two highlights were a dance party cutting show, put on by Farouk Systems (the people that make Chi) and demos of a new treatment called Brazilian Blowout, which I got to be a model for. Now, I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. The Brazilian Blowout is a non-chemical hair de-frizzer and curl relaxer that will last up to 14 weeks. It is amazing! I can blow dry my hair in 10 minutes without having to use a flat iron! It's crazy, I have straight hair now!!! Oh ya, and we got to meet Nick Arroyo from What Not To Wear! It was awesome!









Last but certainly not least, Kirk and I celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary! Wow, I can't believe we've been married that long! It seems like just yesterday that I met my best friend and fell in love. I feel truly blessed to have found the perfect man for me and that we get to be together for eternity. He is such a great man and love him SO much! I can't imagine my life without him! We celebrated this year by going to the Gila River Temple open house in Thatcher, AZ. Its a pretty short drive (3 or so hours) from our house but we decided to stay overnight. Going to the temple is an amazing thing. It's really neat to be able to see it before it gets dedicated. And of course for others, whether young children or non members who don't have recommends its a cool experience. It was a great way to remember what makes our marriage so special and sacred. Happy Anniversary Kirk!


So that's it, for now at least. I'm busy with my fellow YW leaders getting ready for girls camp. It's coming up in a month so the countdown has begun! In my other spare time (which is not frequent) I've been trying to go to Zumba class, my new obsession. If you need a change in your workout routine, just try it, you'll get hooked too. I've also been trying to be a good adopted auntie to Crew, Melissa & Charlie's new little one. I keep calling him 'my baby' in front of Ava one of their other kids, who I've already dubbed my baby. I think its confusing her because the other day I said 'where's my baby' to Melissa, looking for Crew and Ava turned around and looked up at me and said 'I'm right here, mommy!' (she calls me mom too). After having a talk with her, we decided that she is my baby and Crew is her baby so I'm Crew's grandma. Awe, the joys of being an adoptive auntie and mommy! It's fun!

And the award goes to.....

ME! For being the worst blogger in the world!!! Ha ha! I've been really behind lately so now, after being home for two weeks, I'll tell you about our trip to New York. Kirk and I have been to NYC a couple times before but this time we went with our good friends Crystal and TJ. We met them at the airport in Hartford where Kirk's mom picked us up. We spent the night at their house and then headed up via train the next day to the city. We spent 4 awesome nights in the city. Of course to save money, we all shared a hotel room we found right in the heart of China Town. Even though the surroundings were interesting to say the least, the hotel was nice.

We did alot of walking! We ended up getting a city pass which included several of the most popular tourist sites, all of which, Kirk and I hadn't seen yet. Some of the things we did were museums, time square, island boat tour, central park, china town, little Italy, Rockafeller Center, Empire State Building and traveling the subway. I can't really say why I love the subway, but I do! Kirk's parents met us on Saturday, our last day in the city to go see Mary Poppins. It was so cool, even though I'd seen it already.

Back in Connecticut, Kirk and I spent some one on one time with his parents. We shopped, went to our favorite little diner and Kirk even found a new brand of root beer he hadn't tried. We love going back east, not only to visit the sights, but to spend time with his family. I hope you'll enjoy our pictures and if you have any questions of what they are, just ask. (I'm too lazy to tag them all, lol!)

Texas Trip

Well, we're back from Texas now. It was a long but fun trip. We visited tons of family and friends. Here's what we did in a nutshell:

Monday - We started the project at my parents house of tearing out the old linolium and replacing it with tile.

Tuesday - We continued the project...this happened every day actually. At night, we hung out with some friends and played Band Hero. It was awesome!

Wednesday - Alan came home!! We woke up early, early in the morning to meet him at the airport. We got there right when his flight got in but still had to wait for another 45 minutes or so because he had to go through customs. We spent the whole day hanging out with him and eating alfajores, a fun treat from Argentina.

Thursday - More hanging out with friends and working on the family project

Friday - My Grandpa came, which was awesome! We went out to dinner for my mom's birthday and Alan's homecoming.

Saturday - We had lunch with some friends, played Rock Band, had dinner with the family, Kirk had a jam session with some old friends and then we went ice skating.

Sunday - Alan spoke in church, we had dinner and then spent the rest of the day with family.

I think that was pretty much it. We did alot in this short week. We had a fun time and hope we can go back soon. I did have a realization this week: I live in a bubble. Seriously, all my friends live within 1 mile of my house and everything is so close. Man have I got it made! Anyways, enjoy the pictures. I didn't feel like labeling them, lol!

Texas weather

Well, we're still in Texas but I just had to say how much I love this weather! First because my allergies and asthma cleared up and I'm breathing so well! And secondly because I love how unpredictable it is. No one ever listens to t.e weather men cause they're never right. Today, we had a huge thunderstorm then when we got out of church it was sunny and felt like 80 degrees and now it's drizzle rain and It's only 3:30. What will we get next? Snow? Tornado? I can't wait to see!

When I get home, I'll post pictures and stories of our week here. It has been fun and very exhausting!

Catch-Up

Well, I'm trying to remember what has happened since my last post but I'm having a hard time. I can say that I have been super swamped with activity planning, working and trying to keep my house under control!

New years was pretty fun. We went to a couple of parties and stayed up way to late! We did have a fun time though! Kirk and the guys went to a Phoenix Suns game and dressed up! I didn't expect the dressing up part so it was a shocker to get these two picture messages on my phone.


I got a new calling at the end of the year. I was really sad when they released me from being the miamaid advisor. After all, I've had that calling for 3 years now! I thought I was getting a break from the YW (don't get me wrong, I LOVE them!), but alas, they called me right back into the program as 2nd counselor! Now, I really have to go to mutual! Ha ha! I've been loving this calling because one of my favorite things to do is organize, and thats exactly what I get to do! My first event to plan was Un-Camp. Its like an un-birthday. We wanted the girls to remember the feelings and spirit they felt at camp so we re-created it in the backyard of our president's house. And living in AZ, we can do that in January! It was a complete success! The girls and leaders loved it! Now, I'm waist deep in the plans for New Beginnings. I've been to a thousand New Beginnings but this is the first one I'm planning and its gonna be awesome!

Another exciting thing is that in exactly 17 days (and counting) my brother, Alan will be coming home from his mission in Mendoza Argentina! Yea!! My family is, of course, super excited! We are all planning on being in Dallas bright and early on the 17th to welcome him home! I can't tell you how much I love this kid! He will always be an example of righteousness to me and I'm so incredibly proud that he is out there serving the Lord. There's no better way to spend two years of your life.

I might as well end this post with another emotional event, since I'm already crying. Yesterday I ran a race. Many of you know that this year, one of my goals was to become a runner. I've never been good at anything that takes athletic ability (except dance, I guess), so I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could actually do it. Throughout the year, I doubted myself so many times. Even after I finished a triathalon, I didn't thing I was that great. But yesterday, I think, no, I know my struggles paid off. It might not sound like much, but for me, finishing a 10k (6 miles) was a huge deal. I remember when I first started running this time last year, I couldn't even run a half mile without almost fainting. But during this race, I didn't stop once, I didn't even walk. I ran the whole time, and that was an accomplishment for me. I might not ever run a marathon, I might not ever win a race but to me, I've won. I realized that my body can do amazing things. I know now, that I am an athlete. I know, that I can do anything I set my mind to. Can't, won't, not good enough...those aren't options for me anymore. I can, I will and I am good enough to do anything.

December Happenings

The month of December has been pretty un-eventful for the Spencer family. Even though all our family lives out of state, we decided not to visit them for Christmas. My brother will be coming home from his mission in February so our trip to see family will have to wait until then.

As for this month, Kirk went out of town on a buisness trip, we went to a couple Christmas parties, and I got sick...again. This time I had a sore throat. I did go to the doctor this time because I wanted to make sure I didn't have strep. Fortunatly, the test was negative. So after much investigation from the doctor, he came to the conclusion that I have allergy induced asthma. Great, just great. I came home with Prednisone and Albuterol. I'm officially a nerd! But, I am pretty excited to use the inhaler for exercising. He said that will help since I get winded easy with exercise.

As for Christmas, we kept it pretty low-key. We saw the temple lights with some friends, went on a date to see Avatar in 3D (if you haven't seen it, go. Its super awesome), and had a fancy dinner and movie night with friends. Normally we don't exchange gifts because we don't like to spend the money but two days before Christmas we decided to get new cell phones. Kirk got the Droid and I got the Droid Eris. I can't stop playing with it! Definatly the best phone ever! I thought it would take me forever to get use to a touch screen and the whole navagation but it really wasn't hard at all. Way worth the money!

We also got a very nice framed picture from Kirk's parents. It matches our house perfectly!

And of course, I have to add the token Trixie picture. She loved having one or both of us home all day for the entire week of Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving we stayed here in AZ. We decided to get together with some other friends who didn't have family in town to have our big feast. And let me tell ya, it turned out to be a huge feast! We had 4 smoked turkeys, tons of sides and about 11-12 desserts. Oh and we can't forget the homemade ice cream and root beer!

We ate, played volleyball, talked and played Rock Band. All in all, it was a fantastic day! It was so fun spending time with our friends on Thanksgiving.

Oh and those pictures of Trixie are from earlier that day, when Kirk and I were bored waiting for the turkey to be done. She hates when we decide to do photo shoots with her! :)

Hanson haters....BEWARE!!

In case you haven't heard, I had the most amazing day of my life last week (not including my wedding day)! As I said before, my birthday present was to go to the Hanson concert. My friend Cynthia and I have been waiting for this day for months. It was down in Tucson so we decided to have a Hanson day where we watched all our Hanson movies, recordings, etc before we headed down for the concert.


Our plans changed (cue mood changing music). Right after I blogged about how we were going to the concert, I checked the Hanson website and they posted that there was going to be a "walk" that afternoon hosted by Hanson. Now, if you don't know what a Walk is here's a brief description. Hanson has partnered with Toms Shoes to help raise awareness of the poverty and AIDS epidemic in Africa. Hanson periodically hosts walks where you walk a mile in these people's shoes (which is no shoes)to help people become aware. So we heard about this last minute walk and we were off to Tucson.

When we got there, we thought we'd be able to find the location pretty easily. It started at the Mall on the University of AZ campus. Easy, right? Not exactly. We drove around the campus for about 15 minutes looking for the mall. Then we got out and ran around the campus for another 15 minutes asking people 'where's the mall?' and 'have you seen Hanson and the walk?' We must have sounded like idiots! And to top it all off, we were a half hour late to the walk. We thought we had missed it and were about to give up when across the 'mall' (by the way, the mall is a strip of grass...dumb!)we saw a group of people walking with a banner and shouting with megaphones. It was HANSON!!!!

We ran up to the group and Hanson shouted on the megaphone for us to take off our shoes and join the walk. They TALKED to us!!! So we took our shoes off as fast as we could and fell in line with the group. When we looked around, we were standing right next to HANSON! I couldn't believe it! I think thats when I started hyperventilating.

After we finished the walk (we joined up with about .10 of a mile to go) they took us to a bookstore on campus to thank us for walking with them and sing us a couple songs.

Then they offered to sign autographs. We were tickled pink with excitement. When we got up there, I transformed into the teenage version of myself. My words came out like vomit. It was like I had to tell them my whole life story in a matter of seconds. They probably thought I was nuts! But, I did get a 'Happy Birthday' from them, an autograph and my picture taken with them. I think I could have died!!!

Afterwards, we watched them from the top of the stairs because we didn't want to leave. When we finally did, it felt like I was in a dream. I finally lived out my 14 year old teenie-bopper fantasy! I met HANSON!!!

The concert that night was amazing! We were in the second row. Well for me it was like the first row because the girl in front of me came up to my chin. We couldn't take pictures of the show but that was ok because we got way better ones. We left Tucson around midnight and I was in bed at 2:45am. What a long and exhausting day but it was one that I'll never forget!

Now that you've read this whole post and looked at all my pictures, go ahead....let the jokes begin! :)